


Breathe

by Falathren



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Destroy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-09
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-10 21:54:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/790600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falathren/pseuds/Falathren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after the events of Mass Effect 3 Joker wakes up on a foreign planet. Seperated from Shepard he tries to deal with the loss and hurt over losing him again, while the crew works on ways to repair the Normandy. Nobody knows what happend to Shepard, but they struggle to maintain order and make it back to Earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Loss

It took him time. Taking a deep breath he stretched a little. The crash had been rough and he was afraid to become aware of the very familiar pain of broken bones. But he could breathe. That at least was a good sign and motivated him to stir a little more in his seat. Only then was his attention drawn away from his body and he became aware of the silence stretching through the ship. It had never been that quiet, not even on a late night in the dry docks. Not after the Council had grounded them. Just never! There was always something, like the metallic sound of footsteps on the tiles or distant murmur.

Fighting against the rising lump of panic in his throat, he closed his eyes and took another deep breath. He held it for a few seconds and that was when he finally heard it: stirring, a murmur and breathing. The breathing of others. Of other people. Of Crewmen. Of _his_ crew.

Hel felt himself calm a little, odd as it was in these circumstances. Slowly he let out the breath he was holding and opened his eyes. Through the windows of the bridge a faint sunlight crept in. It wasn’t particularly bright, yet it burned in his strained eyes and he felt his hand rising up, trying to shield him from the light and then rubbing over both eyes. Blinking a few times after this he adjusted to the strange light and actually looked out of the window to his right, his gaze becoming vaguely aware of the limp form in the seat next to him.

“EDI?”

His voiced sounded alien in the still relatively quiet ship and it seemed shaken, not like his usually confident tone. Swallowing he tried to gain better control of it and tried again:

“EDI!”

But then he knew there would be no reply.

Forgetting about the window and the strange sunlight, he leaned back in his seat as another wave of panic hit him. It alienated him further from his body. Looking down on himself he saw trembling hands which wouldn’t obey him.

_Breathe._

He didn’t know if that voice came from him, whether it was only in his head or someone else had actually said it to him. It didn’t really matter, but it reminded him of the act of breathing and gave him something to focus on despite the rising panic. He took a couple of shaking breaths and finally gained enough control to force himself to breathe slowly. With that he felt himself settling back in into his body again. Now he became aware of his trembling hands without looking down on them. Yet, he couldn’t quite control them.

Suddenly he also became aware of a dull ache on the left side of his chest and some strain below his knee on the same side. Taking more steady breaths he focused on the pain, tried to read it to understand where it came from and why.

It took some strength, but he brought his right hand, which was still trembling, up to his left side and pressed carefully on the spot of his ribs, where he thought he located the ache. The pain spiked, forcing him to let out a huffed breath. But it was not the pain of broken ribs. Certainly not. It was intense, but not as awful and realizing that made him sigh ever so slightly with relief. During the crash he must have hit his left side along with his leg, which was throbbing from the knee downwards, but that pain was even milder than in his chest.

The murmur behind him was getting louder and he could feel the confusion, but there were still no steps approaching him. Should he get up?

No, he really didn’t want to. He would be at the center of attention soon enough anyway, forced to answer all sorts of questions. But right now he himself could hardly make sense of the last minutes (or was it hours already?). Apart from that he was sure, he wouldn’t be able to get up and remain standing. Bless the thought of even walking on his own.

He felt his heartbeat go down though and the adrenaline leaving his body slowly, which made him dizzy just sitting there with his right hand still lying on his chest. But with the leaving adrenaline his brain finally decided to piece some of the events together. Slowly he remembered the feeling of desperation while the ship was chased by a gigantic explosion. And before that?

Dodging Reaper-Beams, basically. Dodging that was supposed to be “Protecting the Crucible at all costs”. Yes, the Crucible. It was that thing that fired the explosion they, or rather he, had to outrun.

His mouth twitched a little. It could have had already ended before that, but he was still the best freaking pilot the Alliance had to offer and he’d be damned if the Normandy would have been reduced to ashes by one random Reaper-Beam. Now his mouth actually formed into a grim grin. He had just reclaimed some part of his usual self-confidence.

And he remembered more: being called back down to Earth. Someone had been injured and he actually got the Normandy back there, right in front of giant Harbinger. He hissed. That would have been suicide for every other pilot, but of course he pulled it off. He knew it was Kaidan and James that had been injured. His friends. Despite all odds he would call them both friends now. But even though he had that knowledge that his friends were injured, a macabre hope had spiked in his heart. A hope that by picking them up, the nightmare would end and that the one person he wanted to have back on the ship would join them. Even though it was just a matter of seconds to get down and open that hatch for the pickup, he had convinced himself that it would be good now. If he came back to the Normandy, it would be good. Somehow. The thing about hope is, that it doesn’t follow any rational patterns. In this illusion of hope, all threats of Reapers would be gone, the moment he came back to the ship.

But hopes can scatter like glass and cut you deep in the process. This is especially true about desperate, non-rational hopes.

John wasn’t coming back.

He had retreaded slowly from the ramp and ultimately turned around. “Now GO!” was the order that was audible to Kaidan and James and the soldiers guarding the cargo bay. “You, too. Go, Jeff!” was the order that was almost whispered through the coms and transported only to him, the piece that cut him.

And there it was again. Loss. The pure feeling of loss that crept through his spine as Joker pieced together the memories of the battle. He closed his eyes again. How did he even manage to bring the Normandy back up into the fight? His routine maybe. And EDI, of course.

During those last minutes of the battle, he had regained more and more control over himself and the ship. There had still been determination left in him. He was going to get him back onto the ship and no one, not even a goddamned Fleet-Admiral, was going to order him away.

In the end Garrus had though.

“Listen...”

It was this small word that had cut him again and made him turn. “Damn it.” How could Garrus have known?

Looking down he found his hands shaking again. Loss. The feeling was starting to crash him, making it hard to continue breathing.

This time he couldn’t steady himself. He pressed his lips together and felt his hands grasp at thin air again to find some holding.

He became dimly aware of footsteps behind him, approaching him. With closed eyes he focused on them. During the small period of hearing them and having the actual person standing behind him, he realized that those were not human footsteps. He wasn’t a genius when it came to recognizing footsteps. He could distinguish John’s of course. And James’, but that wasn’t really difficult either, as there was no competing krogan onboard. And he also knew the person standing behind him now, before seeing him.

“Are you alright, Joker?”

He inhaled. Focusing his strength on a steady voice, he replied without turning his chair:

“Yes, yes… no broken bones, no need to worry, Garrus.”

The feeling of loss had crept up into his chest and he knew it would remain there from now on.


	2. Promises

“Now, did you hear anything of what I just said?”  
  
Joker sighed. No, he hadn’t really listened to Garrus. This wasn’t out of disrespect or ignorance, his head was still spinning after all. Taking a deep breath he shifted slightly in his seat to form an apology, but Garrus cut him off, “Anyway, once we have the elevator back working or at least out of the way, we’ll do a full team check and then try to bring our systems back online. We’ll need you there, so better be ready then.”  
  
With that Garrus turned and slowly walked away. All this time Joker hadn’t turned around and Garrus hadn’t tried to make eye contact either. They shared enough of a friendship to know that neither of them was alright or even remotely ok. Seeing a confirmation of that in each other’s eyes, would probably drown any resolve Garrus had found. This was just him making sure Joker was up for the chaos the next couple of hours would be. And of course it was Garrus who was the first to move, to cancel out any disturbing or distracting thoughts or emotions and who would ensure that everyone onboard made it through the aftermath of the crash. It might be a turian thing, but on the other hand Garrus had always been accurate in every sense of the word. He would surely make some sense out of everything that had happened and get the CIC moving again, which would include Joker as well.    
  
With that, Joker finally turned his seat to look at the half-opened door leading from the helm to the CIC. When they had departed, Garrus had been standing right behind him but had headed out to issue some orders. No one had actually given him command, but then things would have truly gone to hell without him. Joker sighed and rubbed his eyes again. The emergency life support was working, which was reassuring. At least they wouldn’t suffocate on some poisoned atmosphere now.  
  
And suddenly he felt curiosity, turned his chair around and looked out of the glass front of the cockpit: plants, there were actual green plants. The sunlight was still different, but it seemed like they had picked one of the nicer planets to crash on. He couldn’t make out any snow or ice, which was also good. He hated snow. Not because of the cold, but moving in a snowy landscape was one of the activities he wouldn’t consider pleasant.  
Hi gaze wandered away from the window and became once more aware of the limp metallic body in the seat next to him. Had the AI-Core taken damage? If so the whole crew deck was most likely a wasteland. The core was even more protected than the engine room. There was just no way a crash, which had left him in the exposed helm of the ship without a real scratch, could damage the hardware in the core enough to initiate a shutdown.  
  
Joker bit his lip and turned to look on his console. Some part of the interface was still working, but it only showed warnings, error codes and the helpful hint that they were about to crash. A breath left his lips that almost sounded like a laugh. He tried his luck on one of the blinking warning signs, but nothing happened. The whole thing was frozen and after two more attempts, he gave up. Bringing the systems back online wasn’t his job, but the constant blinking was starting to eat away on his already strained nerves.  
  
He wanted to scream. The whole situation was unreal and too much for him to handle. Never had he felt that helpless before and with his bio that certainly said a lot. Clenching his left hand into a fist, he tried his luck with the console again. If he could at least open a comm-channel! But that damned thing was still trying to warn him of the imminent crash and he kicked at it with his right foot while moving in his seat. He had to get out of the cockpit. For the first time in his life he wanted to get away from there and fast.  
  
Turning the whole seat with another frustrated kick from his right leg, he found himself face to face with Garrus again. Sighing he settled back and watched the turian approach. Surprisingly he didn’t remain standing, but instead sat down on the ground in front of Joker. Now he seemed shaken and his voice lacked the confidence it had shown a few minutes before.  
  
“The crew is clearing out the mess in the elevator shaft. Seems like we now have to climb ladders to move between decks, but well, could be worse, right?”  
  
Joker looked down on his hands and found them trembling again, “EDI’s not responding.”  
  
Garrus sighed and looked over Joker’s shoulder, “Most systems are offline. We will find a way to get them back working one by one.”  
  
A long and uncomfortable silence passed between them as they both sat there trying to figure out what to say next. But there were no words that could comfort either of them and so they were both listening to the breathing of the other. It wasn’t easy though, to continue breathing while that one question was still hanging in the air.  
  
Joker knew why Garrus was sitting there with him, nostrils flaring as the turian’s breath was getting heavier by the minute. The door was still half closed, but Joker could make out some of crewmen hurrying around the CIC, though nobody made an attempt at approaching them. He heard some distant voices and hollow rumbling, as they were clearing the elevator shaft. Then he focused his attention on Garrus again, who seemed to be lost in his thoughts, probably trying to come up with something to say.  
  
But Joker didn’t need him to say anything. By then he knew.  
  
He knew why Garrus had told him to get away from the Crucible.  
  
He knew why he had obeyed.  
  
It was a simple promise. Garrus had promised John to look after Joker. The sole reason he hadn’t taken the turian with him to London - because John knew, too.  
  
John knew about the deep friendship and respect between Joker and Garrus.  
  
And John also knew that because of his friendship with the turian, he could ask for such a promise.  
  
Closing his eyes Joker remembered the one talk with John that had left him angry and helpless and that still hurt him. It was the one talk that had nearly ended in an argument until John had placed two fingers over Joker’s lips which wouldn’t have stopped him from a sarcastic and nasty reply. At that point Joker wasn’t going to give in, but Shepard had insisted, gently pressing his fingers down and looking, really and honestly looking, into the other man’s eyes, “Jeff, listen, just listen to me, it’s the one thing you have to promise me, the one thing I ask of you. Whatever happens, you have to get out. You and whatever is left of the crew. You have to get them to safety. You have to get yourself to safety. Promise me this.”  
  
He had swallowed hard and taken a deep breath, before gathering enough strength to nod and therefore sealing the promise with his silent approval. That night, though, he had left John’s cabin without another word and walked back to the helm to be alone. He had felt dirty, because he had made that promise. At the same time he had been angry, because John had forced this upon him, though Joker knew that he was right. It had still left him bitter as he had settled into his chair and tried to shake off the feeling by running useless tests on the Normandy’s systems.  
  
A few hours later, which had even brought some sleep, he had found John in the mess sipping on his coffee, oblivious to his surroundings. Looking at him, the anger faded and Joker had sat down to face him, reaching for the hand that was holding a datapad. At the touch John had looked up and they were good. Simple as that, they were good. They had both been both hurting that day, but what was important was that they both understood each other. The next night Joker had spent with John again, only this night he had been holding him a little closer, with a little more insistence that formed his promise to John: he wouldn’t give up, neither on himself nor on Shepard.    
  
Opening his eyes, Joker found himself back on the crashed Normandy with Garrus still sitting in front of him. The tip of his tongue slipped over his lips where he could feel an echo of John’s touch. He drew strength out of it and focused on Garrus again. He wanted to say something, to get the turian out of his dark thoughts, but his wits failed him again. Instead he turned in his seat, putting his feet on the ground beside Garrus, “It’s ok, you know.”  
  
The other man might have flinched a little, but Joker couldn’t be sure about it. Still, it wasn’t enough to get him moving again and a frustrated sigh escaped Joker’s lips, “I mean it, Garrus. So get yourself moving again. I didn’t land on this beautiful, green world, to have you lose it now.”  
  
Finally he saw the other man nod and look up. Slowly Joker could see the old Garrus coming back and that calmed him, because he knew that he would have need of him soon enough, when doubt and worry would crawl through his chest again.  
  
“I promised him to…”  
  
“I know.” Joker cut him off immediately. He didn’t blame Garrus, but he didn’t want to talk about it either. It would only crumble the little strength he had just gathered again. “I know that,” he repeated, “though I wonder how he got that promise out of you, but, I guess, he always had his ways.”  
  
Garrus nodded again and then finally stood up. Focusing his gaze on the windows, he said, “Beautiful you said? Well, I really hope that also accounts for the rest of the inhabitants. Last thing we need is a Thresher Maw family reunion.”  
  
“Do we know anything about… about here?”  
  
The turian shook his head. “Nothing, really, but an environmental check can’t be done right now. The life support is working though, so we should be fine. Do you remember any…”  
  
“No, not really, I was flying blind. EDI was trying to set some course.” He nodded over to her limp form, and then quickly averted his eyes again. Dead. The realization went through him like lightning. Could she be dead? Could an AI just die? The urge to get out of the cockpit caught him again. He couldn’t remain there any longer, but before he could act on that impulse, he heard the murmur from the CIC rising, ending in something that almost sounded like relieved cheers.  
  
“Seems like they cleared the elevator shaft.” Garrus extended a three-fingered hand to him and he took it without hesitation, letting himself be pulled to his feet. The swiftness of the motion had him dizzy a few seconds, but Garrus waited patiently for him to regain control, before he turned and made his way to the CIC. Joker followed behind, forcing himself to not look back as he squeezed himself through the malfunctioning door.  
  
From afar he could make out the blue silhouette of Liara who was just being helped out of the elevator shaft by one of the crew. He was still too far away to make out what they were talking about, but the way she stood there reassured him that she was alright and that maybe even all the other people on the crew deck, including James and Kaidan in the Med Bay, would be ok, too.  
  
He stopped then, and looked down on his feet, reminding himself to take things slowly. One step after the other, drawing a breath between every two of them. Slow and steady he made his way towards the assembled crew. Slow and steady would be everything he did from now on. One step then the other. Despair could wait for him - he wasn’t going to hurry towards it. That had also been a part of his promise to John.  
  
~~~  
  
It didn’t end there. The promise between John and Jeff didn’t end with one part of them vowing not give into despair. The other had also made a promise, long before Jeff had made his. One night, shortly after they had been reunited and were sleeping next to each other on the new Normandy, Shepard had woken up from a nightmare that had left him trembling and immovable, staring into the empty void located directly above his bed. His choked breathing had woken the man next to him, who had gently placed a hand on his cheek and turned John’s face towards him.  
  
“Breathe, John. Look at me and breathe.”  
  
He had calmed at the other man’s words and had begun to steady himself again, each breath driving the horrors of his dream further away.  
  
“Promise me this, John. Just this one thing - always continue to breathe.”  
  
In the cold and empty nothingness he found himself in now, he thought he could hear a distant voice that reminded him of his promise.  
  
 _Breathe._  
  
And although his whole body screamed against it, sending pain into each and every cell, John managed to gather enough strength to draw a ragged breath.


	3. Dog Tags

Only a few hours after the Crucible had fired, Admiral Steven Hackett found himself back on this half devastated planet that had once been his home. It was hard to imagine that only a short time ago Earth had been a peaceful and beautiful home to millions. Now he found himself wondering how many of those millions were left. Every minute brought them more and more reports from every corner of the world, each one featuring new horrors and details of the destruction left behind.

Doubts were creeping up his spine as he put another datapad down and reached for his glass of water. Suddenly he felt very old. Of course, no one would consider him young anyway, but for the first time he really felt it. A part of him wondered why he had survived that long. Living through the First Contact War had been a miracle by itself, but sitting here now in a makeshift command-center with a glass of cold water in his hand after the war with the Reapers? If the air hadn’t smelled so much like cold ashes, he would have assumed that he had in fact died and his fading consciousness was just making this up.

Most of those fortunate enough to survive were still in a state of shock, but Alliance Command was acting fast and although the confusion could still be felt everywhere, the wheels slowly began to turn again. The fact that most of the heavy decision makers of the Alliance government had survived made things easier to navigate, though it left a bitter taste on Hackett’s tongue. They had hardly managed to evacuate the government officials when the Reapers hit Arcturus Station and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know how many lives had been sacrificed to ensure their survival during the war. Some things in human history would never change. Soon enough the politicians would again be at each other’s throats anyway, trying to maintain and most likely expand their power.

But that wasn’t going to be his business. While he would do anything in his power as an Alliance Navy Admiral to ensure that the lives of the survivors, civilian or military, would be restored to order and peace, he would back out the moment anyone tried to drag him into a politically motivated power struggle.

Putting the glass down, he reached for another datapad and began reading it. Luckily communication was mostly working planet side, but without functioning Mass Relays they wouldn’t be able to contact allied forces that were further away than the borders of the Sol system. But this was also a future problem; right now gaining some sort of overview over their remaining local forces was his main concern.

Deep in thought he didn’t hear the excited voice of the middle- aged woman until he felt her hand on his shoulder. Startled he dropped the datapad and turned his attention towards her. The woman, though his subordinate, didn’t bother with saluting or any other formalities and instead started talking hurriedly.

“Admiral, I’m sorry, but you have to hear this. There’s a report from London and it’s, I mean, you won’t believe it. They found a soldier close to where the beam was located and they are sure it’s Commander Shepard. Seems like he is badly injured and they don’t know if he will pull through, but for the moment he is alive!”

Hackett closed his eyes for two seconds to digest the information. He had been sure Shepard would eventually be found, but being the rational leader he had always been, he hadn’t dared to hope for the Commander’s survival. 

“Is this confirmed? When did they find him?”

“Roughly two hours ago. He has been transferred to a local hospital. A lot of soldiers are being treated there at the moment, but from the armor and the dog tags he was carrying, they are sure it’s Shepard,” the younger woman chewed on her lips and didn’t seem to know where to put her hands, as they were wandering nervously behind her and in front of her again. “You did order me to analyze all incoming radio messages, sir. A small team of soldiers close to the beam picked up a life signal and traced it back.” She added this a little apologetically, when Hackett remained silent for a few more seconds.

“Which hospital?”

“The one on the northern outskirts of London. Saint Raphael.”

He knew that one, because he himself had woken up there once. A former monastery that had been destroyed under a raging king who had separated the whole country from Roman influences. It had been rebuilt as a small shelter for the poor and eventually become a hospital that had ever since treated soldiers in the countless big wars humanity had fought.

“Anyone else got word of it?”

“No, sir, just the soldiers who found him and the emergency staff that transported him to the hospital. I thought you wanted to know though. Should I send out word?”

 “No!” Hackett sighed and rubbed his eyes. “No one is to know about this until I have confirmation. Contact the hospital and the soldiers who found him. I’ll try to get there now and until I’m there no word about Shepard is to leave this room or said hospital, understood?”

Hackett’s commanding voice made the woman straighten up and salute as she ‘Yes sir’ed’ his orders. Nodding his approval, Hackett stood up and dismissed her. He needed a few minutes to plan how to get there. The command center had been set up where most of the brass had been hiding from the Reapers - in the western, unpopulated part of Mexico. If he found a decent shuttle with a pilot that wasn’t shell-shocked, he could reach England quickly.

A lot of things could happen during that time, but at least he could confirm the status of the man who had saved all galactic life.

~~~

The ship was moving again, or rather its crew was. Joker found himself pushed to the side by all the business that had started after Garrus had carefully issued some more orders to clear up. As the stasis of the crash wore off, everyone was eager to get moving again and puzzle the shards of the last hours back together.

But, while everyone found something to fuss over, no one seemed to notice the hunched pilot that leaned on the table in front of the former galaxy map. Now the holographic interface was as frozen as his console in the cockpit was.

Joker felt restless and crossed his arms in front of him to keep them from tapping the table. The lack of interest in his person wasn’t all together surprising and part of him was relieved no one had tried to bother him with questions yet. After all, he wasn’t a very social or ‘people person’, as he used to call it.

And keeping to himself, disappearing almost completely into the cockpit away from public attention had saved him and probably even Shepard from a lot of awkward comments. Hell, no one had even truly realized that Joker had moved into Shepard’s cabin. As long as the ship was flying, they most likely presumed he had set up his bed in the cockpit and judging by the funny looks some of the crew shot him at times, he was still seen as the lunatic who was trying to date the ship’s AI.

Though he wasn’t entirely innocent when it came to that part, neither was Shepard. They had both more or less planted that rumor when James had nearly caught them in the elevator. It had just been a tame kiss, they would have never risked anything outside of John’s cabin or the closed off cockpit and that was fine by Joker. He had never complained, but then again, they hadn’t really talked about it either. Those things tended to develop their own momentum and Joker was completely happy with secretly sneaking to Deck 1, spending another rare and silent moment with John.

_John._

He felt his heart sink once more, but before it really began to hurt, someone tapped him on the shoulder and he found himself next to Liara.

“Maybe you should let Chakwas have a look at you.”

“Yeah, I don’t feel like crawling down the elevator shaft.”

“Well, I heard you were pretty experienced concerning duct-crawling.”

“Cute, Liara. Anyway, I’m fine.”

Which was a downright lie and he knew that Liara would see right through it. He also realized that he had his hand pressed to his left side again and that the dull ache originating from there was back. At least his leg wasn’t hurting anymore.

Feeling Liara’s piercing gaze upon him, he sighed. She wouldn’t just walk away and leave him. No, she would stay next to him until he gave in. So maybe escaping to the Med Bay wasn’t such a bad idea and he could check on Kaidan and James, including the bonus of getting away from that creepy asari empathy.

But he wouldn’t use the elevator shaft. It was still mostly unsecured and there were too many people running around it. Besides, right now they were trying to get to the engine room. The doors there were still blocked. The little information he had gathered didn’t sound too good, as there so far wasn’t a life sign of Adams or any other person that had been down there when they had crashed.

This included Tali and that, of course, had an effect on Garrus, though he tried his best to hide his concern under his stoic turian mask. So far Joker hadn’t been able to wrap his head around the turian-quarian love story, but the fear he had seen for a short second in the turian's eyes, when they weren’t able to access the engine room, had been genuine.

He pushed himself away from the table and made his way towards the little conference room where he would find the emergency ladder leading right to the Med Bay. With some content he noticed that Liara wasn’t following him while he slowly walked through the buzzing CIC. Moving made the pain in his chest worse and when he reached said ladder, he was panting.

After a few seconds of recollecting his strength he grabbed the handrail and descended, trying to push away memories of the day he first went down there, when the ship was crawling with Collectors. If they were to make it off this planet alive, he would be a top patient for any overeager Alliance shrink.

Dropping down from ladder, he had two seconds to look around at the scenery, finding James sitting upright on one of the sickbeds and looking at him with dull and surprised eyes. The glimpse he got of Kaidan didn’t look too good though, as the biotic was lying awfully still.

But now he had Chakwas fussing over him like he had expected her to do. She directed him to one of the free chairs and started unpacking a bag of medical instruments that made Joker hiss just looking at them. Chakwas raised an eyebrow at the noise and her mouth twitched into something that Joker always thought of as a sadistic grin.

“I was just about to go and find you. Good to see you were able to get down here by yourself. Left ribs?”

He nodded and looked towards James asking a silent ‘How are you?’ Closing his eyes the other man in turn nodded and continued to play with his dog tags that were still hung around his neck.

With the finished scan of her omni-tool, Chakwas tugged at Joker’s shirt, “Nothing’s broken, but you’re badly bruised. Get your shirt off, so I can apply some gel there.”

Joker had feared as much. Bruised bones could hurt just as much as broken ones and right now he had no idea how to lift his arms to get out of his shirt without screaming. But the doctor was already at work and somehow she managed to get him shirtless with just another sharp intake of breath on his side.

While she was busy doing another scan and applying painfully cold med gel onto his chest, Joker became aware that James was watching them, or rather staring. It sparked some anger in him, but he tried to maintain his cool.

“You see James, Mother Goose here and me; we have established quite a routine together.”

_Yes, it’s that bad. I’m that bad. You never imagined, did you?_

“Sorry, it’s just… I don’t know. Guess I’m still a little in shock, myself.”

“And that’s why I ordered you to stay down here a little longer, Lieutenant,” Chakwas replied while putting away some of the stuff, she had just used on Joker’s chest and an awkward silence followed.

Joker used the little break to look over to Kaidan again. He was breathing, ragged and irregular, but breathing. 

“How’s he doing?” he asked while Chakwas pierced him with a needle to draw some blood from him. She didn’t announce this action as it was just a normal part of their routine.

“I’m ok,” to his surprise it was Kaidan himself who answered to that question. “Just the usual headache and issues with my implant. Oh, and some bruises of the battle. I’ll live and be back up shortly.”

Because Chakwas was still standing next to him, Joker noted the little shake of her head. But she didn’t say anything and started to clear up, after putting Joker’s blood sample in one of the bigger machines on her desk.

Chewing his lip, Joker nodded once more. He wasn’t sure what to say, but the silence that followed was unsettling as well. He hoped that the humming machine wouldn’t give Chakwas any more reason to keep him here. His mind was working on a plan to get to Shepard’s cabin and he tried to remember where one of the emergency ducts was which would lead him up there.

A part of him knew that it was a stupid plan that would only trigger painful emotions, but he was done with the people around him. Just a few minutes alone was all he wanted. To process what was happening. To form a plan on how to go on.

And, of course, he had to look after Jin, their little space hamster. John had been so fond of the little rodent. Remembering this Joker’s mind set a new objective because he had to make sure it was alright.

The beeping of the machine took him back to the present situation in the Med Bay. Chakwas was already leaning over one of her monitors and read whatever cryptic message the machine had transferred over. She frowned a little, but Joker knew that this wasn’t necessarily a bad sign. 

“You should really get some rest, Jeff.”

“Oh really, Doc? You had to pierce me with a needle to get that result?”

His reply got out sharper than he had intended and he felt sorry immediately, but Chakwas didn’t seem to mind; another part of their routine. Instead she opened a drawer and produced some pills out of it, “I know you will most likely not take them, but I’ll give them to you anyway. “ He sighed in defeat and took the offered medicine to stow them in his trousers’ pocket.

But his fingers became aware of something metallic in there and he pulled a small metal plate out of it that was hanging on a chain. He started at the standard Alliance emblem for a few seconds, his head spinning.

“No, I don’t have them. I don’t even have his dog tags.”

He wasn’t even aware that he had said that out loud as this painful realization shot through him. Shepard had taken his name tag the night before they had gone to kick the Illusive Man out of his rabbit hole. Joker had more or less caught him doing that, while John thought he was still asleep. He had refused to take John’s. It would have been admitting that it could happen, that there was a possibility that John wouldn’t come back.

And now he found himself with nothing. God, why had he been so stubborn and stupid?

“Sorry, I need some air.”

Pulling his shirt over his head, he dropped the chain on the table and tried to make his way out of the Med Bay. Though he could see an extended hand in the corner of his eyes, his doctor and James apparently thought better of it and let him go. Unconsciously he made his way to the life support, not minding the confusion he had left behind in the Med Bay. Starting from there he would be able to reach Deck 1.

“What the hell was that about?”

James had sprung up from the bedside when Joker tried his escape, but one sharp look of Chakwas had frozen him in place. Now he was standing next to his sickbed like a child that was waiting for pick-up by his parents.

The doctor seemed to have no intention to explain anything, as she just said down again and rubbed her temples. A frustrated grunt escaped James’ lips and he turned his attention to the other person that was still lying motionless on his sickbed.

“Anyone?”

Kaidan stirred a little and brought one of his hands to his head, putting it over his eyes.

“James, that’s… “ it took him visible effort to speak and keep his voice steady.

“It’s about Shepard,” Chakwas offered without looking up, leaving James standing there open mouthed. “He and Jeff were more than just friends.”

 “What? I mean, you mean... Loco and Joker were…?  Seriously? That’s crazy. Wait, you all knew about it?”

He heard Kaidan sigh, as the other man gathered enough strength to speak up again.

“Actually, it makes perfect sense. They kept quiet about it, though. Didn’t want the whole ship to know and I can’t blame them for it.”

They went silent again as James processed this new information, feeling like an idiot. After a few seconds, which could have also been minutes, Chakwas moved, “I’m going to check on him. He’s probably upstairs.”

“I’ll go. You got enough worries, Doc...” with that James took a few careful steps towards the door. He could still feel some minor pain in his back, but all together he was pretty well off. Better than Kaidan at least.

Walking through the door, he made his way to the elevator shaft. A lot of the crew were now using it to commute between the decks, but he doubted anyone had tried to make his way up to the cabin of their commander.

He grinned a little to himself. _So, now it was John and Jeff. Pretty damn cute actually. Shepard better be alive, when we get back._

The way upstairs was luckily not blocked, even the doors stood at least half-way open and James could squeeze through them without real trouble.

“Oh, shit!”

The word was out of his mouth before his brain had truly taken in the scene in front of him. The floor was wet with the water of the destroyed aquarium, leaving all of Shepard’s fish dead on the ground. Most of his models were also sprawled around the cabin, but that was not the center of his attention.

He had spotted the unconscious figure of Joker lying on the ground in front of the bed.

~~~

Hackett remained standing close to the glass window and stared absently at the scene behind it. His eyes twitched a little and his hands were toying with a small transparent plastic bag a nurse had given to him earlier. It contained the dog tags that confirmed the identity of the man Hackett was watching through the window.

Though his injuries were severe, leaving hardly any skin or bone of his body undamaged, Hackett wouldn’t have needed the small metal plates to tell him that this broken man was indeed Commander John Shepard. The only thing Hackett had understood out of the medical banter was something along the lines of a coma and no guarantee that he would ever wake up. This confirmed his decision to keep quiet about the whole affair and he had managed to get a whole floor cleared and put under restricted access to ensure that no word of Shepard’s possible survival got out. He even ensured that most of the records were not kept digitally, but on good old-fashioned paper. This way no one would be able to hack into any databank and get information out.

On the one hand it was only rational to first ensure the survival of their hero, before giving information about it to the waiting people. But on the other hand, looking at the bag containing the dog-tags, Hackett had also realized how little he knew about the other men. After Torfan Shepard had become a toy for a lot of people in power who would move him, pick him up, and drop him again whenever it was deemed necessary. Hackett himself had played some part in that.

Now he was standing here feeling old and guilty again. The floor was cold and deserted as the few nurses who were allowed here had left to look after other patients. The hospital was still running on emergency power, meaning that the lights were dim and sometimes blinking, casting an atmosphere of an old horror movie. But given what they had just survived, Hackett thought of it as more than fitting. Realizing that there was nothing else he could do, he turned to go, but stopped when one of the nurses entered the floor through the little staircase at the opposite end of the floor. Once more he became aware of the plastic bag and brought it up to inspect it another time.

There were three dog-tags. The one on the back was the N7-tag, marking the man who bore it as one of the Alliance’s elite soldiers.  On top was the dog-tag that had identified the broken and burnt body of Shepard. But it was the little metal plate between those two that had thrown Hackett off balance.

_Name: Jeff Moreau_

_Rank: Flight Lieutenant_

_SSV Normandy SR-2_

_Systems Alliance_

The nurse had walked passed him by the time he lowered his hands again. She was opening the door to Shepard’s room, when Hackett spoke up.

“Would you put these somewhere close to him?”

She turned and looked at him surprised, which made Hackett feel stupid. After all some metal plates wouldn’t do anything to improve the situation. Still, he extended his hand with the little bag towards her and she finally nodded, taking the bag from him.

It was only a small sentiment, but it made him feel better. Without another glance through the window he made his way to the stairs and contacted the lieutenant who had given him the critical intel about Shepard.

“Lt. Rosemore, any news about the Normandy?”

“No, Sir. None yet.”


	4. Hope

The murmur of distant voices slowly woke Joker. Though he tried very hard to shield himself from them, they were still creeping through his ear into his wakening consciousness. Worst of all was the murmur now started to make sense, and with that he couldn’t ignore it anymore. At least he could keep his eyes shut. Being the master of one of his senses was a bit reassuring.

“But we can’t do that. They won’t listen to the likes of us.”

That was odd, because the voice didn’t belong here. He tried to piece together where he was, but he could come up with no solution other than he was in Shepard’s cabin and in his bed. Or, rather, their bed because he had moved in and John had made sure to make Joker feel as much at home as possible. And while it was normal for Shepard to invite one or two of his friends up from time to time, it was usually when Joker was at the helm and not lying lazily in bed.  Because of this, it felt wrong to hear any voice other than John’s in the room, let alone one belonging to a female.

While Joker was trying to remember whom this ethereal voice belonged to, someone else spoke up another person spoke up; another wrong person.

“I know. It’s going to hell anyway.”

That one was Kaidan. Recognizing his voice wasn’t difficult even for a clouded mind like Joker’s. But why was he here? He stiffened a little and became aware of something else. His left arm felt odd and moving his fingers sent a sharp pain through him that almost made him wince. He held his breath for a moment, but no one seemed to have noticed he was awake. In fact, they were continuing their little chat, but right now Joker was too occupied with whatever was wrong with his arm and didn’t catch anything of what they said. He faintly realized that there also was a third voice and that one still didn’t belong to John. Something was seriously not right.

Forcing his eyes to remain shut it slowly dawned upon Joker why there were people in his place of refuge. He remembered the crash and his little intermezzo in the Med Bay. His arm hadn’t been hurting then though and he had left the Med Bay to make his way up to the Captain’s Cabin, the little sanctuary he and John had built despite the ongoing war.

But reaching the upper level he had found everything in chaos. The aquarium was broken, the floor wet and there were dead fish everywhere. It had made him sick. Seeing the model ships scattered around had made him even sicker and he had tried to make his way down the little steps to sit down. His head had been spinning and he had been vaguely aware of stepping onto something squishy. The sound of it had made him gag and he had desperately tried to hold onto something. But he had been alone and the one person he wanted to hold onto wasn’t there.

His other hand had cautiously made its way to his left side and was stroking over the construction his arm was placed in.

_Shit!_

Now he was fully awake. It was easy enough to guess what had happened. He found himself looking into the surprised faces of Liara, Kaidan and Garrus who had seated themselves on the L-shaped couch in front of the bed.

Great! Couldn’t they just disappear? Why were they all up here? Now he had found himself not only one, but three babysitters, just because he had been stupid enough to walk up here alone! He should have known that it wouldn’t be a pleasant experience. But then again, he wouldn’t have been able to keep himself from doing it anyway.

He felt his chest tighten once more, making it hard to breathe. Pushing himself up with his healthy arm he managed to get into a sitting position. It didn’t ease his breathing as much as he had hoped it would. He knew that his bruised ribs weren’t to blame for this and that his irregular breathing would only make it harder to get rid of all the people here.

Joker didn’t want to act like an ass, but the concern he saw in the three faces was annoying. He had never liked it when people were concerned about him or, even worse, pitied him. But this time maybe he should blame himself. It was his own mess after all and if he looked anything close to how he felt right now, he must have been a miserable sight. 

Sighing he gathered some strength to nod towards the little group. It was as much a silent apology as it was an acknowledgment of their concern. At least Liara seemed to understand the little gesture at once and her mouth formed itself into a faint smile.

“Good to see you’re back up.”

As she stood up from the couch, Joker prayed silently that she wouldn’t come over and sit on the bedside or _pet_ him. His tolerance and patience were already at a critical level. But to his relief she turned towards the opposite direction.

“I’ll get back to my work now. Sorry for invading, Joker.”

Dumbfounded he watched her leave and became aware that Garrus was now also standing . The turian looked at him for a few seconds and Joker had no idea what the other man was thinking, but it sure as hell didn’t make him feel better.

“And now that you are awake, I think I might go and check on Tali again,” he nodded slowly towards Joker and then turned to Kaidan again. “If you need me, you know where to find me. But if you give the order we discussed, it should be fine.”

Watching Garrus trail after Liara made him uneasy because he instinctively felt that this wasn’t going to be the end of the story. In a fluttering second of insecurity he was afraid of bad news; the kind that would truly shake his world. He stiffened and held his breath to fight the rising panic, but this time he didn’t succeed and his action ended up in a small coughing fit.

Busy trying to regain control of his lungs he noticed that Kaidan had moved next to the bed, as the other man held out a glass a water. He took it with a small nod indicating his thanks, but only drank a few sips of it.

“Better?” Kaidan asked as he settled himself into a chair next to the bed.

“Yeah, and sorry for being pathetic.”

While playing with the glass of water in his hand, Joker looked absently around the room. The mess he had found here earlier had been cleared away. The broken glass had been removed from the aquarium and Joker found no signs of wetness or dead fish on the floor. It made him wonder how much time had passed, but another question was far more urgent to him. “Where did you put the ships?”

“You mean the broken models? They’re in a box under the desk. Wasn’t much we could do about the fish, though.”

Joker snorted and took another sip of water.

“And, you know, John’s other little friend?”

“What’s he called? Jin, your infamous space hamster? That’s a story you better ask James about. Speaking of which, you really scared the shit out of him. When he came back to the Med Bay, romping like a mad krogan, I had the urge to hit him with something biotic.”

And just like that Kaidan had brought them to their main topic. Joker sighed in defeat. This was going to be unpleasant, but looking at Kaidan and seeing the dark rings under his eyes, along with his still far too pale skin, Joker immediately felt sorry for the other man.

“How long was I out?” He whispered the question and was surprised to still find his voice shaking slightly.

“Some 30 hours. But to be fair, Chakwas did use chemical help there.”

 _Ouch_. He hadn’t expected that. That Chakwas would step in was natural, but being out that long? Now wonder the room was nicely cleaned. He wanted a status update, but he dreaded the question, or rather the answer, and so he remained silent, looking down into the glass. The water inside made his fingers look chubby and alien. He turned his hand a little and continued to marvel at the illusion.

Kaidan seemed to sense his anxiety. He leaned forward on the chair and took a moment to rub his temples before speaking up again.

“Communications are still down. We have no idea what is going on outside of this ship. But we do know where we are now. A pretty beautiful place, peaceful even!”

It seemed like Kaidan wanted to add more, but he leaned back again and waited for Joker to process the information. But the latter remained silent and continued to stare at his glass of water. This left Kaidan at a loss for what to do or say. He sensed that further talk about their temporary new home wouldn’t comfort Joker, but he had nothing else to offer him. Forcing anything onto him wouldn’t work either. Kaidan knew how stubborn Joker could be and how he usually wouldn’t let anyone close. But he had to try something to get him out of his dark mood. Before he could come up with anything, Joker found his voice again.

“Do you think he made it out?”

There were a lot of things Kaidan could answer to that. Most of them would be the normal platitudes, socially accepted but hardly comforting. Joker deserved better and so Kaidan settled with an honest answer, although it might bring him some more pain.

“I really don’t know. More than anything I would love to tell you that Shepard’s ok. I’m still too shaken myself.” After a little break Kaidan added with a small smile, “James believes he’s alright though and one thing we all know is to never count Shepard out. So I’m not willing to give up hope either.”

_Hope._

Maybe hoping wasn’t so bad, but it would still leave Joker feeling alone and lost. He finally moved his eyes away from the glass, although he still didn’t look at Kaidan. Instead his gaze wandered around the room aimlessly. But the other man took it as a sign of improvement. “In time we will have the Normandy repaired and then we can make our way back. Maybe someone will answer our distress beacon first. You shouldn’t give up, Joker. There’s still too little we know.” 

“Message received.”

This time Joker was looking at Kaidan and although his face was serious and somewhat sad, the air felt a little less tense which made Kaidan sigh in relief. He was dead tired and even after several pills and injections he hadn’t had one minute without the all too familiar pounding in his head. At least his pilot and friend was no longer adding more to his worries. Kaidan knew that Joker was far from being alright, but he seemed to have found some part of his spirit again. 

They talked some more after that, although it was mainly Kaidan talking and Joker listening. But the fact that he was listening in earnest was improvement as well. Kaidan mainly spoke about the Normandy and their new home which turned out to be a planet in a recently discovered star cluster. Salarians had begun settlement and probably “scientific” exploration shortly before Sovereign attacked the Citadel. The fact that the planet they crashed on was habitable was a huge relief to everyone and they were already planning to send out a team.

“Atmosphere and temperatures, everything’s like on Earth, so we don’t need Normandy’s artificial life support. Days are a little shorter though and the gravity is also lower. Might make you a bit queasy at first, but you’ll get used to it.” The little gleeful wink in Kaidan’s eyes wasn’t lost on Joker and he almost smiled himself.

Damage on the ship wasn’t that bad either. There were only minor hull breaches, nothing they couldn’t fix. The engine room had been shaken a bit, but the eezo core was still intact and, given time, the ship would fly again. However, the people in the engine room had been hurt. While Kenneth and Gabby were left with a few bruises, Adams had ended up with broken bones and some minor burns. He was still recovering in the Med Bay.

“And Tali, well, her suit got damaged and she’s running a pretty high fever. Chakwas is doing everything she can and luckily the Med Bay is stocked with enough quarian antibiotics, but she’s not out of the woods yet.”

 _Damn it._ Joker remembered that Shepard had tried to make sure the engine room was as secure as possible. John had been running around the whole Citadel to find them the required thermal pipes. Still, it was never enough.

“Anymore… casualties?” Joker hated the word. The usage of it had never seemed right to him when talking about their crew and he knew that Kaidan felt pretty much the same.

“No, surprisingly not. A few bruises here and there, but most of them are already at work and…”

The way Kaidan abruptly bit his lip made Joker flinch. There was more and the way his guts clenched right now he already knew.

_So, EDI’s what,dead? Or should I rather think of her as broken? Malfunctioning?_

Some of the bitterness he had felt after waking up was returning. To him, she had been a friend. Even John had thought of her as “crew”, but he wasn’t sure how Kaidan or any other person on this ship felt about her.

“EDI is still offline. Traynor tried to look into it, but whatever happened there, it’s pretty complicated. Something about the core programming and… I don’t know. This goes far beyond my technical knowledge. Maybe Tali can help, once she’s back up. At least I hope so.” The way Kaidan seemed to level each word carefully, made Joker uneasy. So it all came down to hope once more.

Joker wondered if he even had that much hope left in him. One could survive the loss of a beloved person, more or less. But Joker felt like he had lost the person he loved for a second time. Should he even dare to hope again?

Strangely the news about EDI didn’t trigger any emotion in him. Shouldn’t he at least be sad? Even though he closed his eyes for a few seconds, he still didn’t feel anything. He remembered how everything had felt shortly after the crash and the situation right now seemed just as unreal to him. Opening his eyes again he noticed Kaidan’s concerned look, but this time he wasn’t angry either. Taking another sip of water he leaned back and put the glass on the counter next to him.

“I think I need some time.”

The reaction didn’t follow immediately, but after a few seconds of Kaidan studying Joker’s face some more, he heard the other man rising from his chair. “Ok, but take things easy. Dr. Chakwas won’t let you live down another broken bone.”

“I know, I know. I’ll report back for duty shortly.”

“You don’t have to,” Kaidan replied while slowly moving towards the door. “Not for ‘duty’ anyway.”

Joker watched Kaidan move and saw how little confidence each step bore. He saw the slow and measured movements like every step was hurting him. It made him wonder about the other man and the things that had passed while he had still been out.

“Kaidan, how are you doing?”

The biotic turned at the door and managed a weak smile. “I’m coping. I probably need some time myself.”Ttaking a small break, Kaidan looked back at Joker. “How are you, Joker?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll continue to breathe.”


	5. Questions

A whole day was the amount of time Joker needed to leave Shepard’s room again. During that time no one had tried to bother him, although he suspected some sort of monitoring. But as long as he couldn’t spot anyone or anything, it was fine with him.

The day alone wasn’t spent idly, although what he happened to do wouldn’t qualify as productive either. After rolling around on the bed, not being able to decide whether lying on Shepard’s pillow was comforting or disorientating, he walked around the cabin. Without the glass and water the aquarium lights were brighter than usual and downright annoying. But before he almost resolved to smash one of them, he reminded himself that a brighter room would bear fewer chances for accidents.

He found the box with the model ships under the desk and pulled two out. One was broken in a half, but the other was only missing small parts. Still, it was nothing he could have fixed with only one working arm. Turning in the desk chair he looked up to Jin’s home. The little rodent must have been asleep, but when Joker tapped the glass slightly it came out squeaking its annoyance over the intrusion of its rest. It seemed unharmed and without knowing why this was a huge relief to Joker.

Maybe it was, because this stupid animal was so closely connected to a lot of funny memories. Maybe it was, because Joker saw it as connection to the person he was missing. Maybe it was just out of animal love and not wanting to see any more death. While watching Jin disappear into its little wood house again, Joker had another idea; another stupid idea that was doomed to fail anyway. But when had that ever stopped him? Perhaps he would be able to find something else of John, some handwritten message or some little secret meant only for him. Like the dog tags; perchance John had left them here anyway.

Looking around Joker started to search the files on the desk. His heart was beating faster by the minute, but nothing turned up there. Although his whole body was shaking with anticipation, Joker managed to walk back to the living area without falling. The idea that had started his search turned into a fever making his healthy hand move automatically through the cupboards next to the bed.

About an hour later he was sitting on the bed again, breathing heavily and pressing his eyes shut to desperately hold his emotions in order. Knowing that your plan was doomed from the beginning was one thing, but finding confirmation for that was a whole different matter. Of course, he had found nothing and why should he have? He had been the stubborn ass who had refused John’s dog tags, because he wasn’t ‘sentimental’ and didn’t even keep pictures of his family around. And he had also been a dreamy little child who would have never believed he could be separated like this from his beloved person. The only thing his search had turned up was the black hoodie John had used to wear when he was in his quarters. Jokers had more than once mocked him about it, calling him a show off because off the N7-embroidery on it. Now it was the closest thing connected to Shepard in this damned room.

Joker was utterly exhausted and on the edge of tears, but he wouldn’t allow himself to cry. He had stopped active crying long before he entered flight school and after that the only time ever someone had seen him with watery eyes was when he had crashed another of his own bones and was waiting for the pain killers to kick in. Lying down on the bed again with his feet still in the air he thought how curious it was that Shepard’s absence, and he refused to call it anything else, would send him through this goddamned rollercoaster ride of emotions. He had barely any control over himself. But getting back to work might help him to at least postpone further emotional outbreaks. First, however, he felt his eyes go heavy once more. Using the hoodie as a blanket it didn’t take long for Joker to fall asleep again and this time his exhausted body cherished the time of rest.

He only woke up one time, because his arm started to hurt. Chakwas must have injected some sort of reconstruction med gel which would make his arm useful again in only a week, but the working process of that could be extremely painful. Looking at the counter he spotted the painkillers she had given to him when he first came down to her and gratefully took one pill. His stomach wasn’t really happy about this, but he was slipping back to sleep anyway, only briefly wondering why his favorite doctor hadn’t shown up to check on him. Well, she wasn’t his favorite doctor, because he would never consider anyone who wields needles while smiling as a favorite person, but she was pretty close to it. Then again this was no real surprise, because he had spent most of the last years in her care and knew he would be up for a long preach once he would humbly crawl back to the Med Bay to request more pain killers. Maybe he was her favorite patient after all.

That was why after some more blissful hours of sleep he decided to first pay Chakwas a visit. Better get the unpleasant stuff done right away, although he did wonder if there were any pleasant things coming up anyway. Of course, the elevator was still out of work, but the shaft had been secured with make-shift ramps which would help him change decks without trouble. The constructions, however, were pretty steep and forced Joker to walk down annoyingly slow.

On his way to Deck 3 he stole a quick glance into the CIC which was still humming with busy crew members. A look towards the helm told him that the door was still malfunctioning. Apparently no one had tried to make his way there, but fixing the helm wasn’t as important as closing the hull breaches and getting communications back online. Sighing Joker continued his descend and ran into a few people commuting between the decks. They nodded towards him, but no one stopped to force a talk onto him.

The mess hall was just as busy as the CIC and Joker spotted James in the far corner close to Liara’s office. He immediately was aware that the other man obviously wanted to talk to him, but Joker escaped quickly into the Med Bay. However, maybe it would have been better to stay outside and let James fuss over him, because Chakwas wasn’t well. In fact she literally screamed at him and fool was one of the kindest ways she used to address him. Joker was perplexed. He had never seen his doctor in such a mood and she only calmed down on a word of Adams, who motioned towards the sick quarian next to him.

After that she sat down silently on her desk. Joker wondered how much sleep she had gotten in the last days. It was obvious that her nerves were stretched thin and he had just added towards her worries by breaking an arm. Apologizing in all earnest was all he could come up with. At least the little breakout of her was directed towards him. He could deal with it and had probably really earned it anyway. But doubts were suddenly creeping into his mind again. If even Chakwas was losing her nerves like this, he didn’t even want to know how the others might be feeling. The image of Kaidan’s hunched figure appeared in his mind and slowly he realized how grave the situation here might really be. While he had been busy mourning Shepard, the rest of his crew had dealt with the fact that they were stranded and far away from home, not knowing what had become of the Reapers or Earth. For the moment they were save, but all the weeks of death and destruction had taken a serious toll on everyone. Now they were trapped here, forced to take a break and of course, after the initial shock of the crash had worn off, everything each person on board had bottled up during the last weeks was breaking out of them; the fear, the terror and helplessness mixed with vain hope.

Joker moved closer to Chakwas and carefully extended his hand towards her shoulder, giving it a small squeeze. To his relief he saw her pose relax a little and she finally looked up again, smiling faintly. Her omni-tool came to life and did a quick scan of him. “Come back here in 36 hours. It should be enough to have your arm whole again. And, please, watch out there for yourself, Jeff, just this one time.”

Unable to reply because of the sudden dryness in his mouth, Joker only nodded and left the Med Bay without another look back. He tried to quickly make his way towards the elevator shaft, but the broken arm made it hard to maintain his balance and therefore slowed him down. He wasn’t sure where he wanted to go anyway, so he took Chakwas’ words to heart and walked carefully. Becoming aware of his complaining stomach he made his way to the mess hall, hoping to find something eatable.

He wasn’t disappointed, but before he was even able to gather a plate James stepped up behind him and offered him a tray with water and something vaguely resembling food. Taking a few steps backwards with the tray still in his hands he signaled Joker to follow him to two free chairs.

He wasn’t really in the mood for further conversation, especially not with James whose face clearly displayed the questions he wanted to ask. But had he really any choice there? Defeated and still very hungry he followed James, feeling like a goddamned puppy. After they sat down, James had at least the mercy to push the tray over to him and not start his interrogation right away.

“What? You’re not going to feed me? Come on, James, I’m hurt pretty bad.”

“Don’t tempt me!” Grinning James took a long gulp from his glass, while Joker examined the plate in front of him. But even staring at it for a minute didn’t give him any clue about the ingredients. Eggs? Potatoes? Skeptical he looked up to James again.

“Don’t ask me, I didn’t mash this up.”

“Oh, that’s actually reassuring intel.”

James shot him an annoyed look and muttered something under his breath that might have been ‘jerk’, but Joker didn’t reply to that. Instead he brought up a forkful of the unidentified mass in front of his face, but even a close up of the food wouldn’t solve the mystery, so he bravely put the fork in his mouth and started chewing. It took all his willpower to not spit it out again, because the taste was just as elusive as the whole mess looked. He heard James laugh at the face he was obviously making, but swallowing the stodge he could almost hear his stomach rejoice. So he brought down one fork after the other and sent James to fetch him new water at least three times in between.

As he made good process with the food, he tried to figure out an escape plan. So far James had been silent and maybe, just maybe, he would be able to leave the deck, before the other man knew what he was up to. Then again, he couldn’t exactly run and a part of him had to admit he thought enough of James to not just leave him. Actually he even valued their friendship, although he would never admit it openly. James more than often came up with stupid ideas, but something about his downright honesty had left an impression on Joker and reminded him of Shepard. That was why he decided to stay and he even shot James a sly smile after finishing with his meal. 

“So, uhm, how are you?”

“Hell, James, you really want to make this awkward, don’t you? Just ask what you want to ask and I promise you that I’ll try to answer everything honestly, except those things you’d better looked up on the extranet.” Joker smirked while pushing the tray to the far corner of the table. He leaned back and watched James raise his eyebrows, then pulling them into a frown, as he opened and closed his mouth without forming a real word. The sight of him made Joker grin at first and then, after a few more seconds of James not knowing what to say, he laughed for the first time in days.

“Ok, smartass, first kiss?”

Joker raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t expected James to jump right into it, not like this anyway. Something made him fall over the words he wanted to say. Pausing for a moment he realized this was actually the first time he had ever been asked that question or any question regarding Shepard. Garrus, Kaidan, Liara, maybe even Tali. They all knew about him and John, but they had never questioned them about anything and more or less took it as something they couldn’t do anything about. Finding himself face to face with James, of all people James, was just as crazy as the whole being-stuck-on-an-unknown-planet story. Shaking his head with a grim smile bought him some time to form an answer.

“Geez, didn’t know you were interested in the romance part.”

“How about you just do as you promised?”

“Alright, alright!” Joker was clearly trying to avoid the answer, but on another piercing glare from James he had to admit his second defeat on that day. “First time ever would have been during the official ceremony where Anderson was introduced as the new councilor.”

“Ah, I see. Gotta say that the party was really good and cerveza always helps, doesn’t it?” Now it was James’ turn to smile, while Joker shook his head again.

“No, no, no! Not at the party afterwards. More like during the speech of that scary turian councilor. We both got bored halfway through and no one was paying us any attention anyway. We never made it to the party afterwards.”

The sight of James’ eyes widening made Joker laugh again.

“You are shitting me!”

“Do you think I would voluntarily admit to fraternization during a political speech by a crazy turian; with Anderson standing next to that spiky blueblood, looking all dead serious and stuff? Not likely. If you can’t handle the replies however…”

“Nice try, you’re staying here. That’s just something to wrap your head around.” James was about to grab his glass of water again, but halfway through the motion he noticed it was in fact empty. Shaking his head he leaned back and eyed Joker.

“What do you mean, James? That we got busy during an historical event in human history? Or rather that your mighty Commander Shepard chose his pilot over any asari nobility. You know, the one with the hollow bones that can’t even walk straight.” Joker spoke those words carefully and in a calm manner, although he felt his heart beating heavy against his ribs. During the following moment of silence James was trying to evaluate Joker’s question, while the other in turn eyed him up.

“That’s not what I mean. Rather that the two of you managed to stay silent about it all the time.”

A half-laugh escaped Joker’s lips before he was able to stop it. “And then what? Not even Anderson would have been able to stop that shitstorm.”

Though James immediately wanted to reply with a sharp denial, he ended up with a “Yeah, you’re probably right”. He had personally seen how crazy Alliance politics could become; he himself was proof enough for that. A galactic icon like Shepard just couldn’t be in a relationship of any kind without giving fuel to his enemies and there were quite a few of them, not only in the Alliance brass.

“Any more questions or are we done here?” Joker’s healthy hand had started tapping the table indicating his urge to flee the conversation. But naturally James wasn’t even remotely done. He had quite a few more questions in mind. After all he had just discovered a whole new facet on his idol and since the Commander himself wasn’t present, Joker was his best bet right now. Trying to keep the curiosity at bay was pretty hard work for him, but he tried to remind himself that Joker had just recovered from the little incident in the Med Bay. For James this was already pretty far off, because he hadn’t spent the last days in drug induced sleep. While he had promised Kaidan to go easy on their pilot, he needed to ask one more question and looking at Joker carefully he felt the ground was save.

“So, why did you fall for him?”

First the tapping on the table stopped and then a nervous laugh escaped Joker who was looking around helplessly. But no one was there to save him.

“I don’t know. I mean it just happened and I didn’t even realize it at first. Maybe, because he trusted me without ever questioning me. Like on Ilos where a whole bunch of people including Kaidan were standing behind us, yelling it would be impossible to safely get the Mako down there. But Commander Shepard just told me to do it, not even looking back, when he made his way to the vehicle.” A little, warm smile had formed on Joker’s lips, as he relived that scene in his head.  He couldn’t stop the sudden wave of emotions that took hold of his body in the next seconds, but he was able to sit still, close his eyes and keep a steady breath. After a few seconds the feelings ebbed away and he opened his eyes slowly. “Kaidan said something about you believing he made it out.”

“Hell, yeah! We came that far. I have confidence in Loco getting the rest of the job done. If we don’t hurry to make it back to Earth soon, I’m sure he’ll come to get us and that would be more than embarrassing.” James laughed a little to himself, obviously playing a little scene in his mind where Shepard would just drop down from the sky with three spaceships behind him. “You should talk to Traynor. She’s analyzing the last data-feeds from the battle, trying to piece together what happened after we left Earth.”

“Is she going to ask me stupid questions, too?”

“I don’t think so.” Winking James stood finally up and Joker couldn’t help but sigh in relief. Carefully he grasped the table and stood up himself.

“Just one more thing, James. What happened between you and Jin?”

“That little bastard? Didn’t you realize he was on the loose? I spent three hours chasing it through your cabin, while you were asleep. Major’s orders! And when I finally had that slippery rat and humbly put it back into its cage, it shot me a look that still gives me the creeps. I half expect it to make it out again and strangle me in my sleep.”

Without really wanting it Joker laughed. It was a good and honest laugh that even showed in his eyes. If James had known about Shepard’s rodent hunt in the engine room, he would have probably also laughed. But that was a story for another time, maybe to embarrass Shepard a little, when they were back home.

“Anyway, I need a coffee. You want one, too?” James collected the tray and glasses from the table and moved towards the kitchen once more.

“Thanks. I rather go up now and check things in the helm. Hope no one messed with anything there, especially not with my carefully calibrated seat!”  Joker watched James shrug and turn around. He sighed a little and then turned to walk up to Deck 2 again. Although he would never admit it, the talk with James had done him good. He felt truly awake now and was somehow impressed that it had been James to help him get over the horrible, unspoken fear.

On his way up he ran into Kaidan, although it was rather Kaidan almost running him over. He still didn’t look any better than when they first talked a day ago. It was even worse, because something in his body language suggested high alert. Joker suddenly remembered he was by protocol now in command, but that still didn’t justify the tension in his attitude. Blinking a few times Joker thought  maybe he should apologize, but Kaidan caught him short.

“Sorry, Joker. Have you seen James?”

“Yeah, he was down with me in the mess. Something wrong? I was just on my way to the helm to…”

“No, nothing’s wrong. Just do what you were about to do.”

Without another word Kaidan was on his move downstairs again and left a confused helmsman in the middle of the ramp. Joker had a bad feeling, but couldn’t come up with an explanation for Kaidan’s behavior. He was sure he had seen a pistol strapped to Kaidan’s waist, but that made even less sense and he really hoped this wasn’t about a wild Thresher Maw.

The CIC was surprisingly empty now. Only a few servicemen were hunched over their monitors and not even Traynor was in sight. But then again, Joker hadn’t had time to ask about assigned shifts or duty rolls, so he just made his way to the helm. The door was still half open, the exact same way it had been after the crash. That was good, because he really wasn’t in the mood to find unpleasant surprises left by other crew members on his working place.

But there was always a catch and he spotted it the moment he stepped into the cockpit. EDI’s body was still lying motionless in the seat next to his. He cursed under his breath and was about to stomp back into the CIC to bark at the first person he saw. After all they did want to get off this planet one day, didn’t they? Pissing off the pilot was one way to seriously consider building a house with a garden here.

He took a deep breath to steady himself, but instead turned towards EDI again and collected her left arm which was hanging down motionless over the seat and placed it gently over her torso. The arm was heavy, almost too heavy for him to lift, but he didn’t want her to look like a broken and forgotten toy. Still, it wouldn’t do to have her lifeless body next to him all the time, not until they had her fixed again.

“I’m sorry, EDI.”

He left the helm and looked around the CIC for a few seconds. Among the few people present, he spotted no one he would entrust EDI’s body to. So he decided to look for James once more and maybe even get himself a coffee, although he should probably first ask Chakwas about this. If the coffee interfered with his medication, he was sure she would freak out again. But maybe he would also be able to find out what the hell was going on with Kaidan. The other man had seriously scared him a little.

Well, he did find out even before he stepped onto Deck 3 again, because just a second before he reached even ground a high-pitched scream filled the air and made him nearly stumble over his own feet once more. 


	6. The Sky Above

That day Joker made a mental note that things could always get worse. As if fighting off a Reaper invasion or being stuck on some godforsaken planet wasn’t enough. It had been easier before they crashed here, because then they had had a common enemy; or rather two if you counted Cerberus. It had let him and probably a lot of other crewmembers to the illusion that they were a team, had each other’s back, although they most likely would never all be a bunch of cuddling friends. Besides they were military. Everyone held their drills of respect and dreams of honor and glory. But there is no glory or honor once you’re stuck on a crashed ship and all those ideals can never survive basic human nature.

During the countless rescue missions he had done with Shepard, Joker had already seen a lot of aspects of human nature. Most of them had been horrific and disgusting, but he had always ensured himself that those things were an exception and basically humans were capable of common sense even under extreme circumstances. Now he found himself watching three crewmen being led away from the Crew Quarters at gunpoint and felt his own carefully constructed world of ideals crumble.

So it had only taken a few days until the first couple of servicemen broke down and tried to upset the new, fragile order. Though Joker tried very hard, he couldn’t wrap his head around the why. As much as he had gathered they were fairly safe here and it would only be a matter of time until they could leave this place to head home. But surviving a war, being on the edge all the time could do funny things with your head, which was why three low-ranking privates had decided to throw everything over board and do things their way. Joker judged their brilliant plan had been about assaulting one officer, while she had been alone in the Crew Quarters. Humanity at its best!

Watching Kaidan and James lead the three of them down, probably to lock them up somewhere in the engine room, he noticed Garrus who had just stepped out of the Med Bay. Joker wondered briefly if that was his version of a concerned face, as he first nodded towards him and then decided to walk over. When he was finally standing next to him, Joker concluded he just looked like he normally did.

“So, did they at least shoot someone?” Garrus crossed his arms in front of him as he evaluated the situation. Most of the other people present already began to tear up into smaller groups.

“Nothing so spectacular, I’m afraid. Just a basic assault of three against one.”

Garrus made a deep noise in his throat which one might mistake for a chuckle. “Good they know how to put their training to some use.”

“You seem awfully relaxed,” Joker raised an eyebrow. “We are still stuck somewhere in deep space and some of or crew just practiced mutiny. Usually I’m the one with the bad jokes.”

“Ah, don’t worry. We’ve been suspecting this for two days now and had an eye on them, gave them duties to isolate them some more from the decent, hardworking crew. They’ll fall back in line after a few days locked up downstairs.”

Shaking his head Joker tried to push aside what had just happened. He clicked his tongue and considered asking Garrus to help him move EDI’s body out of the helm, but his thought was interrupted by heavy footsteps from behind. Turning he found Javik stepping out of the elevator shaft and judging by the way his nose, or the little holes that could be a nose, flared, Prothy was in a bad mood. Once he became aware of Garrus and Joker he charged into their direction, making Joker flinch involuntarily. Even Garrus seemed impressed for a few seconds, but remained standing still and upright.

“This is a disgrace! Even for all of you primitives! In my cycle we would have shot mutineers without thinking about it! And we certainly wouldn’t offer them a room that is occupied by some guest! Throw them out of the ship, I say and let them explore the local wildlife!”

Garrus answered with an annoyed grunt and took a step forward, which made Joker whistle with respect. He wouldn’t have dared to come closer to the prothean. Rather his flight-instinct was in place, but if you break bone that easily, it’s probably wise to keep quiet every once and a while. Garrus, however, seemed all too ready to take his chances. “Or we could deploy our only functioning shuttle and drop them out in low atmo? Wouldn’t that be more to your taste?”

“That would be more suitable, but they would die far too quickly.”

Joker made a step backwards, more or less pressing his back into the wall behind him. He didn’t like the way this situation was developing. While reading facial expressions of all non-humans still proved a challenge most of the time, he couldn’t help but notice the tense atmosphere between Garrus and their prothean ‘guest’, as he had called himself.

“Javik, if you don’t like the way we handle things…” Garrus didn’t finish his sentence, because the other man averted his four eyes and turned on his heel, making his way down through the elevator shaft once more. Joker couldn’t help, but feel a wave of relief wash over him. Things were really getting out of hand and he wondered how it would look, if Shepard was here. After all he had always been the one to keep them all together. Without him everything was prone to fall apart once more and it tore on Joker to watch the beginning of it happening right now.

John wasn’t on board of the Normandy anymore to set things right again. For the first time Joker understood the whole meaning of this. It sure didn’t make it any easier for him to remain calm and standing on his own feet, as Garrus turned around once more and eyed him up.

“You okay, Joker?”

Letting out a heavy breath Joker peeled himself of the wall, but still left his healthy arm there as a reference for something solid that would be able to keep him from falling over.

“Yeah, perfectly fine. Just cannot help but notice the overall atmosphere here seems a little tense.”

“A little, yeah. But nothing to worry about. We’ll get it sorted out. Javik will probably brood somewhere in the engine room for a few hours, but he’ll come around. The other three are safely locked up and I’m sure they’ll come around, too. I’d say the situation is under control.”

“Uhuh. But remember that Javik has those creepy greenish biotic powers, so do me a favor and don’t try to piss him off while I’m still standing behind you.”

“And here I was afraid you’d lost your sense of humor,” Garrus tilted his head a little and the way his mandibles flared Joker was sure his was smiling; or rather trying to. “So now that our snarky pilot is back in business, anything you’d need help with?”

Feeling a little less shaky Joker dropped his hand from the wall and looked down to study his feet. He had to let out another sigh before he was able to speak up again.

“The console in the helm is still frozen, so I cannot really get back to work there. Also, I don’t think EDI’s limp body would do my morale any good.”

The awkward silence following his speech showed him that Garrus hadn’t considered anything concerning EDI and was likely not sure how to react. After a few seconds the turian still hadn’t come up with anything and so it was once more Joker’s turn to propose a solution. “Do you think we could move her? Maybe to the AI-Core until someone figures out how to help or ‘repair’ her?” 

“I’ll get James to move her immediately.” Joker and Garrus looked around surprised upon hearing Kaidan’s voice. No one had noticed him entering the Crew Deck again, but to Joker’s relief he now seemed far more relaxed than before; the haunted look in his eyes was gone. “I’m sorry we forgot about that, Joker. I’ll see if I can find Traynor to restart your console and while we wait, how about a coffee? I could really use some coffee right now.”

While Joker nodded his approval, Garrus turned towards the Med Bay. “I’d rather stay there a little more. Guess the crisis is averted for now, so I hope you don’t mind.”

Both humans watched him leave with a concerned look. Joker made a mental note to inquire more about Tali’s condition once they were sitting over whatever excuse of a hot beverage on board was now esteemed to be coffee. But it couldn’t be any worse than the food he had been served earlier, so he shrugged and made his way to the big table, sitting down with his back to the Med Bay, because he really didn’t want to see EDI’s body being carried away.

Kaidan didn’t follow him immediately, but instead walked away to collect James and Traynor. Because Joker didn’t felt like he was needed there, he just waited at the table and felt a little dull. With his broken arm and his generally limping walk he wouldn’t be able to carry two cups of coffee safely over anyway. So he was basically staring at thin air until Kaidan finally showed up again. To make the situation a little more awkward the other man seated himself, obviously expecting the coffee already being served. He jumped up again and made his way to the makeshift kitchen without another word, but Joker couldn’t keep himself from rolling his eyes and he wondered briefly if sitting down here had been a good idea. Maybe he should have just waited at the CIC and not taken the liberty of another break without having done any work in between.

But now it was too late to back out, because Kaidan was already on his way back with two cups of a steaming beverage. Joker prayed it was actual coffee, the real thing and not some instant brew. Well, he was disappointed: it was instant, had to be! But whatever Kaidan had done transformed the broth into something actually resembling the real thing.

They started to drink in silence and even though Joker enjoyed his coffee more than expected, he didn’t want to speak up first, not even with a compliment aiming at the kitchen skills of the other man. Eyeing him carefully over the edge of his cup, Joker decided that Kaidan did look a lot better than before, but he still seemed tired and worn out. He even thought he could spot some more grey hairs at his temples, but then again, before he had never really looked at the biotic long enough to be sure about this. It was, however, clear that Kaidan was far too distracted to break the silence, so Joker took a deep breath and did the socially accepted thing of introducing some small talk.

“So, uhm, how are you, Kaidan?”

The other man raised an eyebrow and took another sip from his coffee.

“Like always…”

“Meaning? You do look rather tired and… old!”

“Thanks, Joker!” Kaidan put his cup down and leaned back a little, his eyes wandering around the room and then up at the ceiling. “I’m just as stressed out as everyone else, but I’m fine. Just glad we got those three idiots contained before they could do real harm.”

Joker nodded slightly, although he was sure Kaidan didn’t notice it. “I wasn’t even aware what was going on. Seems like I missed out a whole lot of things.”

“Don’t worry about it. Thanks to Liara and Garrus we realized what was going on, before they even made a real plan,” Kaidan rubbed his eyes and leaned forward again, facing Joker. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m good and ready to fly this bird back home, although I suspect we still need a few more days of repairs?”

Kaidan nodded and toyed with the cup in front of him. “Garrus estimated we might need 23 more days, if we can keep the pace up. Even so, we first have to make sure everything up there is all right. Our comm systems are back online, but we can’t seem to get a signal out.”

“Something to do with the Relays?”

“Maybe, but I sure as hell hope not. It could take us years to get back home otherwise.” Kaidan shrugged and took his cup up again, but instead of drinking he just stared down into the black liquid.

“What about that colony you mentioned?”

“Yeah, about that. Actually it’s farer off than we thought. Seems like we managed to land just at the opposite end of the continent. However, we didn’t pick up any life signs and honestly, if it was a salarian research facility I really don’t want to know what they might have bred there.”

“That could be fun! Has John ever told you about the things they were keeping on Sur’Kesh? A few of those, what are they called, Yakhs! They should be extinct! Would have loved to see Liara’s face then.”

Kaidan raised his eyebrows again, obviously missing the irony and it occurred to Joker that maybe he really only knew half of the things they had done during their Cerberus time.

“Ah, never mind, Kaidan. I’m sure she’ll be happy to tell you about it, if you manage to get her drunk enough, which by the way is rather easy.” 

Kaidan tried to suppress a laugh, but didn’t succeed. His pose seemed to relax some more and in his eyes something gleeful sparked. “How about the two of us go out now? It’s about time we actually leave this ship.”

Joker’s coffee mug nearly fell out of his hand at the proposition of the biotic. “I’m not really sure I should be the first one to step onto any foreign ground, Kaidan.”

“Come on! Every reading we did suggests a nice and habitable planet. Even salarians lived here! And ever since we landed here no Thresher Maw tried to kill us either.”

The idea was intriguing and Joker was tempted to give in. It would be a nice little piece of irony if he was one of the first to leave the ship and with a biotic at his side, nothing should happen. On the other hand standing up right now and actually leaving the ship was a little bit scary. It was nothing he would usually do or liked to in the first place. Normally it took a lot of convincing to make him set a foot outside. But what was _normal_ at the moment anyway? With EDI offline and John not present why shouldn’t he try and leave the ship for a few minutes. It would give the crew something to talk about.

So praying the coffee wouldn’t interfere with his recent medication, he gulped down the last bit of the now cold brew and stood up with one swift, resolute motion that even surprised Kaidan a bit. “Let’s go then.”

They left the two cups on the table and went to the CIC. On their way up Joker hoped they wouldn’t run into James. Maybe he had already carried EDI down to the AI-Core, while they had been brooding over their coffee. But Joker doubted he would have missed James’ heavy footsteps.

On their way to the former airlock Joker found confirmation that EDI was still in her seat in the helm. He spotted James standing in front of it and Traynor hunched over her metallic body. Involuntarily he made a hissing noise, but was quickly distracted by Kaidan who started to work on the airlock door without paying anyone inside the helm any further notice.

Surprisingly the door was fully functional, but had been sealed off. Being the person currently in command it took Kaidan only a few pressed buttons on his omni tool and a quick scan of the lock to open it.

The warm breeze of fresh air was surprising for both men, although they thought they were prepared for it. It smelled different and foreign in a way Joker couldn’t quite name. The air carried faint traces of something sweet, but there were also heavier traces of wood and another hint of something solid, like metal.

In the corner of his eyes he saw James step up close to them, as Kaidan lowered his arm with the omni tool and took in the scenery in front of him. The sunlight seemed very bright, warm and welcoming. The green plants underlined the peacefulness of the place. It was simply beautiful.

As Kaidan shifted and moved to step out, Joker put a hand on his shoulder. “Let me go first.”

Blinking a little confused Kaidan stopped in his motion and looked around. With a smirk he finally nodded and stepped out of the way, waiting for Joker to move.

Before the other man moved, however, he took a deep breath and quickly touched the brim of his cap. Then he started with a first, somehow shaky little step. The next one seemed a little more stable and the third almost could have counted as self-conscious.

And then he jumped down the little height onto the foreign ground. It was just a small thing; Shepard had done it a thousand times: entering a foreign planet. But for Joker and his rather sheltered life onboard of the Normandy it was a huge step and in a strange way it made him feel connected to Shepard once more. Doing something he usually did, it suddenly felt like they hadn’t been torn apart a few days back.

He heard voices behind him, one of them belonging to Kaidan who was apparently issuing some orders to James. A second later the black haired man was standing next to him. They watched the leaves of the trees in front of them move in the soft breeze, before they looked at each other and nodded. Kaidan took a few steps forward after this and kneeled down to touch the ground, while Joker remained standing still and cradled his broken arm, feeling a little overwhelmed.

After a few minutes Joker heard a heavy bump beside him and then saw James stepping up next to him. Joker watched him and Kaidan move around the green compound a bit longer until he decided to turn around and have a look at the Normandy, his ship. She didn’t look too bad, at least not from this side. There was a rather huge hull breach around the blue Alliance logo and a few minor ones, he could only see if he squinted his eyes.

He quickly elevated their landing zone and his mind automatically started to calculate a possible lift off. It should work rather smoothly. Maybe they would have to get rid of a few of the bigger trees first, but it wouldn’t be a difficult maneuver. Well, not for him anyway.

Yeah, it was a relief. He relaxed and stopped cradling his broken arm. Someone tapped him on the shoulder and he became aware of James and Kaidan next to him. For a short moment they looked at the Normandy together, before the two men decided to head back inside. It was James who helped Joker back in. While he was being lifted back inside, he took a quick but intense glance up at the sky, remembering what James had told him earlier that day about Shepard coming for them, if they took too long to get home. But the sky remained a dull blue, a different kind of color than on Earth, and didn’t bear any signs of an incoming ship.

Traynor was still busy in the helm, but EDI wasn’t there anymore. Before stepping out to join them, James must have finally moved her and this also came as a relief to Joker, one he maybe should feel guilty about. But he wouldn’t have been able to work with her lifeless body in sight.

“It’s just the hard reset of your console. Takes a few minutes, but then the helm should be fully functional again.” Traynor pressed some buttons on her own mobile console and a new holographic interface appeared in front of Joker’s seat. “Just one more minute,” Traynor smiled in his direction and continued to press various glowing buttons.

Joker remained standing behind her, unsure what to do or say. Watching her work didn’t seem right, but as Kaidan and James had already turned to leave the helm, he hardly had any other choice.

Chewing his lower lip Joker wondered if he should ask her about the data analysis of their final moments in the battle like James had suggested. On the other hand he wasn’t sure how to introduce the conversation in an easy manner. After all he had hardly spoken with her and was generally not very good at talking and chattering with random people. On a personal note, Tranyor was a far too cheerful and positive person to his tastes, which was why he had never voluntarily talked to her on any other matters than their mission. 

But he really wanted to know, which was why after a few more seconds of chewing on his lip, he had finally made up his mind to just go ahead and ask. If she was to draw any conclusions or start and ask him funny questions in return, so be it. He had dealt with James, he would be able to deal with an Oxford lab rat just the same.

“So, uhm, James said you were analyzing the data feeds from the battle. Did you come up with anything?”

Traynor immediately stopped with her work and turned with a surprised smile, obviously not having expected to be spoken to, but clearly looking forward to a little talk.

“Yeah, I did, but it was hardly anything useful. Most of it anyway.”

Joker took a deep breath, gathering his strength to inquire some more. Couldn’t she just tell him and not make him ask every single question out loud? It did hurt him already and he already wished to have never started talking in the first place.

“Anything about Shepard?” Looking away he tried to avoid her piercing glance. It must have been piercing and maybe curious, he was sure of it and at the same time he was wondering why he was afraid of her reaction, if there even was one to follow. He saw her stance shift a bit through the corners of his eyes, but that didn’t tell him anything.

“Nothing in particular, unfortunately. After he ordered the Normandy down for pick up, I found some more, mostly unclear transmissions between him and Admiral Hackett. I came to the conclusion that whatever happened with the Crucible, it was Commander Shepard who fired it. It must have been him. Unfortunately, we lost any further contact the instance we hit the Sol Relay.”

Surprised by this sudden flood of information Joker took a step backwards and once more brought his healthy arm up to cradle his broken one. He wasn’t sure where to put the information emotionally. It was defiantly a struggle, but at least Traynor went back to work and didn’t seem to notice or mind Joker’s inner conflict. Generally he was inclined to take it as a good sign, because it meant Shepard had made it to the Citadel in the end. He had been alive, when they had hit the relay. Well, at least there was no confirmation of his death and if he’s made it that far, Joker saw no way he could have died afterwards.

Slowly Joker let go of a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding. It came out as a small sigh and he decided to just leave it at that and postpone any further brooding over this matter. Luckily Traynor seemed to have finished her work as well and turned around with an awfully happy smile, nodded and left the helm with an “All yours”.

Sliding down into his chair for the first time after the crash felt better than he had expected and another wave a relief washed over him. It actually felt good to be back at his familiar place of work, although he couldn’t shake off the slight glooming presence of loneliness. At first the quietness was also strange, but that didn’t bug him quite as much as he feared it would. However, he still was alone now and realized just how used he had become to the annoying AI next to him. Once again he had to keep the rising panic at bay. Although it wasn’t easy, he succeeded quite well and stored it away, making it yet another part of his current life just like he had done with the feeling of loss that had made it hard for him to breathe at first. It was a heavy burden, but his mind wasn’t nearly as fragile as his body. He would cope and he would maintain his sanity along the way, although he prayed the universe was done with throwing crap at him for now.

He moved his hand over the console, contemplating where to start and trying to get the slight shake out of his fingers. There weren’t any real orders he had received and Kaidan, the person he should refer to from now on, had left the helm without another word. Maybe an overall, general diagnostic was a good start and so he moved his hand a little, tipping onto some buttons and started to run the numbers. Sometime along the way he squinted through the window and up at the bright sky again. Still, there was no sign of Shepard.

~~~

After the first diagnostic had been done life slowly settled into an organized routine. There were no more stirrings among the crew and the progress on the Normandy was decent, though not as fast as Garrus had estimated, especially because Tali wasn’t getting better and still not up on her feet again. Although Chakwas was doing her best, it was clear she would need quarian help soon. How they were going to get that, no one knew and Joker tried to not give it too much thought.

Within a few days he had established his own pattern to deal with the current situation. He was hard at work in the helm, checking flight reports and overseeing the progress done in the engine room. It wasn’t an altogether unhealthy schedule he had put on himself, but he did spent an unreasonable amount of time alone in the helm, sometimes skipping meals or falling asleep there. Usually there was someone taking pity on him and he was offered fresh coffee or some food, but no one tried to argue with him either.

And he was happy to have something to occupy himself with. Occasionally he left the helm to walk up to Captain’s Cabin. It had never been addressed if he was still allowed up there, but the room was empty and although he was sure the likes of Kaidan and Garrus took notice of it, he was never questioned about it either. Resting on a real bed from time to time was bliss and helped his strained muscles, although his heart usually felt a lot heavier up there. But he was coping quite well; dwelling in memories, but not letting himself be overwhelmed by emotions.

Through the little skylight above the bed he could watch the sky and sometimes laughed about James’ silly idea someone would just drop down there. But the thought was warm and pleasant, lightening up his mood and drowning the disappointment when seeing only clouds or strange stars in the distance. They weren’t altogether that foreign, especially not to an Alliance helmsman, but it was still a curious feeling to see those entire star constellations that differed so much from the ones you could see on Earth. This place here was not and would never be home.

After two weeks the most urgent repairs were done and the pace settled down some more. They had set up a small camp just outside of the Normandy which was used by most crewmen to get some R&R. But they never went to explore any more than the direct crash side.

Joker, who naturally couldn’t find any real pleasure in sitting around lazily under a strange sun, kept to the helm, although his work was coming dangerously close to a conclusion, if they didn’t lift off any time soon. And this was out of the question, while there were still hull breaches to fix and secondary systems to repair. However, the work he was able to do slowly ran out.

So, Joker settled with restarting some diagnostics and recalculating numbers, a useless task which was only efficient in keeping him from thinking. He looked wearily at the holographic interface above him and squinted a little. Pressing a button on his left, he typed in some commands and opened a comm channel.

“Kaidan, you better get up here. I’m picking up a signal from another ship.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that was Chapter 6! Hope it was fun to read, because I certainly had a lot of fun writing it. 
> 
> Thanks for reading <3


	7. Interlude

When he first opened his eyes, it was cold and dark. A piercing pain was radiating through his body and he decided to better close his eyes again.

When he awoke for a second time, he could see blurred faces and burning white lights. The faces were murmuring things he couldn’t make sense of. One face was addressing him with his name, that much he was able to understand, and he tried to reply, but somehow only dry coughs escaped his lips. Then he felt something cold on his arm and in the next second he drifted again into darkness.

But the third time he opened his eyes for good. Staring into bright, white neon lights, he slowly made sense of his surroundings. He was in a hospital. The IV in his field of vision suggested as much. The room wasn’t empty. He could make out various noises. Wetting his painfully dry lips with his tongue, he gathered enough strength to move his head and look around.

He was in a room with various other patients. Some were sitting in their beds, some seemed to be asleep. Nurses were scattered around the room, hurrying their ways and occasionally stopping at one of the beds. No one seemed to have noticed him being awake yet, however.

He watched a drop of the clear fluid from the IV running down a plastic tube, disappearing into his bandaged right hand. Carefully he tried to move his fingers, but was interrupted by a voice close by.

“Lt. Cortez?”

He turned his head to the left and blinked two times. It took him a few more seconds to fully comprehend that the person standing next to him was Admiral Hackett. He tried to come up with something to say, but the Admiral hushed him with a move of his hand.

“It’s good to see you finally awake, Lt.” Hackett turned around and brought a chair up to Steve’s bed. When he sat down, Steve’s first thought was that Hackett seemed different than he remembered him. He looked tired and worn out, not even close to the Hackett he had known before the war.

After a short pause in which Steve wasn’t sure, if he should say anything, Hackett breathed in deeply and spoke up again. “How are you feeling?”

“I… Thank you, Sir. I’m not really sure how I should feel. What has happened? How much did I miss?” Steve’s voice sounded hoarse and even to him a little alien. He swallowed hard a few times. When he focused again on the Admiral, he was surprised to find him holding out a glass of water to him. Steve took it thankfully and slowly drank a few sips of it. The cool liquid felt like heaven and Steve wondered if plain water had ever tasted so good.

But Hackett didn’t give him much time enjoy the taste. The heavy sigh from his direction made Steve raise his eyebrow in wonder.

“You missed out about four days.” The Admiral frowned as if he had difficulties to piece it all together as well. “Well, do you remember crashing your shuttle in London after dropping off Shepard and his squad?”

Steve nodded slowly. An uneasy feeling had begun to settle in his stomach.

“Then, surely, you also remember that you made it on foot to one of the close by firebases.”

Again Steve’s only response was a small move of his head. Although his memories were blurry, he remembered the aftermath of his crash too well. Surprisingly, he hadn’t been badly hurt then. He had been able to make his way alone to a close by friendly base. But why he ended up in a hospital eluded him.

“Towards the end that base was under heavy fire. You were lucky it ended when it did. Rescue troops found you under the rubble one day later and at first it didn’t look like we would get you patched up again. The brain trauma you suffered was severe.” Hackett sighed again and looked with narrowed eyes at

I’m anxious on a ridiculous level about posting this chapter and continuing this whole fic after dropping out for so long…

It is what I wanted to write, though, because I’ve been planning to include Steve in this fic all the time., for two reasons. Firstly, he is one of my favorite characters in the whole series and secondly, my personal head canon has always been that he remained on Earth after the end. So I’m more than happy to just put him in this chapter. Here’s hoping that you also like this idea.

Pfew… I mean to continue this story the best I can in the next weeks/months and I really hope to finish the next chapter soon.   
Steve.

The latter tried to get the puzzle pieces together. He remembered nothing of the mentioned attack and couldn’t even recall the face of one the people stationed at the base he made his escape to. But what struck him the most was Hackett mentioning the end of the war. Could it truly be over now? He had some difficulties believing it.

But now, with the blankness in his head lifted, a thousand questions formed there instead. He wasn’t able to formulate even one though, so he remained quiet. Although he was in no actual pain for the moment, he suddenly felt dizzy and could hear the drumming of his heart. He started to gesticulate with his hands, as if this could help him sort out his thoughts.

“Give it a break, Lt.” Hackett interrupted him. “Most important thing is that you are safe and recovering. The rest of your questions will clear up in time.”

The small and rather grim smile he got from Hackett didn’t really ease any of his feelings and Steve eyed him carefully, trying to read more into the other man’s expression. He wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue and tried again at formulating a question.

“If I might be so blunt, Sir,” Steve said. “What exactly are you doing here?”

Although it was hard to meet the eyes of the Admiral in front of him, Steve didn’t flinch away. The fact that such a high ranking Alliance soldier had been waiting at his bedside in an overcrowded hospital room, just wouldn’t add up to any story version he had in mind.

Hackett’s shoulders sagged down, which was even odder. Although Steve hadn’t had many run-ins with him, he had never seen him falter in his poise. The whole situation just got a whole lot more awkward.

After long seconds of silence, in which the Admiral looked at Steve with a still unreadable expression, he finally cleared his throat and spoke with a very quiet voice.

“Truth is, I need your help and I told the nurses to contact me as soon as you showed any signs of consciousness.” Hackett looked around the room. The overall noise was so high that Steve had barely been able to understand him. He took the chance to look around the room himself. There were roughly ten more occupied hospital beds and countless nurses were running around the room like ants trying to hold the chaos at bay.

Steve tried to look at a few faces, but he couldn’t make out anybody familiar in his vicinity. An icy feeling settled into his guts and made his heart beat heavily against his chest once more.

“I’ll fill you in on the details as soon as you are out of here,” Hackett added after some time, while shooting a nurse who was approaching them a warning look. Steve watched this in wonder, but didn’t comment on it.

The nurse scuttled away immediately and busied herself over another patient.

Steve neither liked the secrecy, nor the way Hackett was behaving. But he was also certain that he wouldn’t get any further updates from the man. However, another pressing question began to take shape in his head and Steve wondered, why he hadn’t asked it sooner.

“What about the others? Where’s Shepard and the rest of the…”

A small hand motion of Hackett cut him short and Steve stared at him disbelievingly, half his sentence caught somewhere in his throat.

“Yeah,” Hackett sighed. “We’ll talk later. Report back to me once your fit enough.” He got up from his chair and looked down on Steve for a few more seconds. It raised the level of discomfort in Steve, but he wasn’t able to produce another sentence and watched Hackett depart from the room without a farewell.

Puzzled he looked after him and was interrupted only by the nurse Hackett had sent away earlier. She quickly distracted him with her questions and soon the first doctor stood at his side and conducted some rather painful tests on him. When the doctor was satisfied with puncturing him and pressing several parts of his body, they left him again.

Alone with his thoughts in a room full of injured strangers, Steve tried to relax a little and maybe catch some more sleep. But even though the bed was surprisingly comfortable and he was almost entirely without pain, he wasn’t able to sleep for a long time. His thoughts circled around the strange encounter with the Admiral and the unanswered questions. Whatever had happened to Shepard and his Crew after he crashed his Shuttle couldn’t be good, or else he would have received some information.

He remembered more bits and pieces, even the small talk he had had with Shepard shortly before they left towards the Reaper Beam. But more details wouldn’t come to him and slowly he felt the beginning of a headache.

He closed his eyes and placed one arm over them. The room was still filled with noise, which he couldn’t shut out as easily, but at one point he even managed to drift into a dreamless sleep.

~~

Two days later Steve was allowed out of bed. He would still have to stay in the hospital for a bit, but at least he could leave the dreadful sick room, which had become even more crowded during those two days. Although some of the other patients had tried to get friendly with him, to share some war stories, Steve was far too absorbed in his own thoughts to establish any sort of contact.

Now he was wandering around the hospital floors aimlessly. From time to time he was almost run over by hospital staff and he wondered how many more lives had been lost in the aftermath of the war.

He stopped at a small window and looked out. The weather was surprisingly good. There was still a lot of dust in the air and all in all it was like looking through a faint fog wall, but the sun was shining and gave the scene in front of him a very peaceful touch.

He was looking at the hospital yard, which had been cleared up hastily. The debris had been moved to one side of the yard to make room for some hospital tents and Steve immediately felt glad that he hadn’t had to sleep in one of them.

He still watched, as a group of three men and two women entered the yard. They were all holding datapads in their hands that seemed to display pictures of some people. The stopped nurses and doctors randomly and showed them the pads. Their eyes didn’t display much hope, but, eventually, one of the men was led into a tent.

Steve had to turn at way. He pushed himself wearily from the window and walked down the corridor without a look backwards.

He should start to inquire after his friends. Before he hadn’t even dared to think about them, but now he wanted to know and he needed some answers.

His first idea was to inquire at the reception of the hospital, where a small office had been established. There was already a long line of people there, patients and visitors, civilians and marines. Steve lined up determined and waited.

After only a few seconds even more people had lined up behind him. One of them, a civilian woman in her twenties, shot him a sad, sympathetic smile. He looked away without returning it. He was tired and worn out. He neither felt liked receiving any comforting looks, nor like talking to anybody.

Steve waited for over an hour. Then it was finally his term to ask the grim looking official behind the counter his questions.

“Military or Civilian?” The man with the gray hair didn’t even look at Steve.

“Military.” Steve’s reply was a bit hesitant. Suddenly he wasn’t so sure about his coming here anymore.

“Name of the person you’re looking for?”

His first impulse was to tell him the name of his husband, a silly, but persistent reflex. Steve swallowed hard and bit down on his lip for a second. Out loud he said “James Vega.”

The man typed the name hastily.

“MIA. Next?”

Steve immediately opened his mouth to protest against this news, but no sound left his lips. He was suddenly feeling ice-cold.

“Next?” The man inquired again and Steve was almost pushed aside by the sad looking woman, who had lined up behind him.

“No, wait, stop. What about…” he thought for a second and shot the woman a warning look. “What about John Shepard?”

The man behind the counter grunted. “Man, you’re not the first to inquire after him. I tell you what I told all the others: No information available. Your big hero is probably still rotting away under some rubble.”

Steve’s hands twitched. Usually he wasn’t very impulsive, but right now he wanted to punch the man. The woman tried to push him aside again and this time Steve used his elbow to hold her at bay.

“What about the rest of the Normandy crew? What about Kaidan Alenko? Jeff Moreau? What about all the others?” Steve tried to keep the panic out of his voice, but he still thought he sounded pathetic and this wasn’t usually a good way to sound, if you were dealing with grumpy officials.

“God damn it,” the man threw up his hands. “The whole Normandy is missing. So each and every of her crew is reported MIA. Their probably space debris for all I know. Now, if you don’t mind to not waste any more of my time and the crowd behind you…”

When the woman made another attempt to push pass him, Steve didn’t resist. He stood at the edge of the crowd and let the new information run through his brain.

Later he made his way back to his bed with an absent mind. Tomorrow he would leave the hospital, no matter what and he would go directly to Hackett. There had to be more to this story.

~~

“I didn’t expect to see you here so soon.” Hackett moved around his desk and extended a hand towards Steve.

Startled by the unusual welcome, Steve took the offered hand. He couldn’t help but feel a bit shabby next to Hackett. The clothes he was wearing weren’t his own. They were given to him at the hospital. A nurse, clearly not approving of him leaving the hospital already, had thrown them out of a huge pile of clothes. The jeans were far too big and the shirt seemed already a little worn out. But it was better than nothing and probably more than some people owned right now, because he even had the luxury of owning a toothbrush. His temporary ID had also already been issued and this would grant him access to some of his money.

The Admiral, however, didn’t seem to mind the lack of a uniform. He moved around his desk and motioned for Steve to take a seat there as well.

Steve sat down hesitantly and waited a moment for his superior to open the conversation. But Hackett didn’t seem in a hurry.

“I’m sorry, Sir,” Steve said finally. “But, the last days have made little to no sense and I really need some answers now.”

Hackett breathed out heavily and put his hand in front of him, as if he was gathering his thoughts anew. “Well, first off I’m glad you came here so soon, Lt. I know the last days must have been confusing, but trust me, after this massive war there is hardly anything that makes sense to anyone. I’m myself still trying to sort things out.” Another heavy breath followed and Hackett looked down on his hands.

Steve was becoming more and more impatient. It was hard for him to keep his feet still on the ground. But he tried to calm his nerves by taking a deep breath himself.

“How are you really doing, LT?” Hackett asked with raised eyebrows.

“I’m doing just fine, Sir,” Steven replied without being able to keep the sharp edge out of his voice. “But I still have no information about what happened to my friends. The only thing I got told is that the Normandy is missing, along with Shepard and everyone else. I want to know where they are.”

“Yeah,” Hackett spoke slowly. “I know. Yes, the Normandy is missing and until now we have hardly any information about what happened there. We’ve been trying to track her down, but they disappeared through the Mass Relay mere seconds before it was destroyed. We have no idea where they might have ended up or if they even made the jump.”

Steve raised a hand in disbelief. “What do you mean? The Sol Relay is destroyed?”

Hackett nodded slowly. “Yes, it is. Triggered by whatever the Crucible did. We have reason to believe that all Relays are affected. Repairs are being organized, but it might be months until they are online again.”

“Huh,” Steve was totally baffled. “That’s hard to imagine right now.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s hard to make sense of anything at the moment.”

“So,” Steve said hesitantly. “They’re really gone.”

Hackett eyed him carefully and seemed to search for words for a few seconds. “They’re missing. But I’m pretty sure they’re still out there somewhere.”

Steve bit his lips and nodded. Blind hope had never played out good for him, but he didn’t want to discuss this with his superior.

After a few seconds of silence, Hackett spoke again. “But there is something else I wanted to discuss with you. As I said in the hospital I need your help.”

Steve could only shrug. Right now he was busy evaluating the information he just got and all in all he couldn’t really imagine going back to work in the next days. But Hackett wouldn’t let him off just like that. He stood up and walked around his desk. “Follow me.”

And although it was hard to gather the strength, Steve did.

~~

Steve had been standing speechless in front of the glass window for a couple of minutes already, staring absently into it. Slowly his brain was processing the scene behind it. He pressed one hand against the window and closed his eyes, exhaling deeply.

“So, he’s alive.”

“Yes,” Hackett replied and moved closer to stand directly behind Steve. “But we’re keeping it quiet. No one has to know, until we can be certain that he will survive. It looks better now than a few days back. His current condition is still critical, but stable.”

Steve let go of a breath he didn’t even know he was holding and looked once more at the person in the hospital bed on the other side of the window. He was hardly visible under all the bandages and the various life support machines.

During the drive to the hospital on the other end of London, Hackett had explained to him what had happened in the last minutes of the battle and what they thought Shepard had done. He hadn’t explained to Steve where they were going and even when they had entered the hospital and proceeded through a tight security check into a closed off, seemingly isolated floor of St. Raphael’s, Hackett hadn’t cared to explain anything further to Steve.

Steve had been recovering in a different hospital. From what he had seen during their walk through the building, the situation here wasn’t less chaotic than anywhere else. That’s why he wondered how they could afford the luxury of an empty, but obviously functioning hospital floor. When they had proceeded through the security check, where even the famous Admiral wasn’t admitted through without his ID, the sudden quietness had startled Steve so much that he nearly stumbled over his own feet. The atmosphere had changed from a hectic, but lively chaos to a rather creepy stillness.

Embarrassed he had continued after Hackett who had proceeded with strong steps. Only after they had arrived in front of Shepard’s hospital room, had Hackett explained to him why they were here.

Steve wasn’t sure what to do next or how to reply to Hackett. He had a big lump in his throat that made even breathing hard. He couldn’t take his eyes of the scene in front of him and continued to stare through the window.

After a few seconds Hackett seemed to move away from him. Steve heard steps and murmured voice. Then whoever had been there departed, but Hackett came back to him.

“I take it you were close to the Commander?” Hackett’s voice was sharp against the otherwise silent floor and Steve was fighting back a sudden wave of nausea.

“Well,” he replied. “He was close to every one of his crew. Looked after us and made sure we were doing ok, even in the midst of this crazy war.” Steve sighed and turned around to face Hackett for the first time since they had entered the hospital. “I believe you could even say we are friends.” 

“I’m glad to hear that,” Hackett nodded. “I think he needs a friend right now.”

Steve could only agree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m anxious on a ridiculous level about posting this chapter and continuing this whole fic after dropping out for so long…  
> It is what I wanted to write, though, because I’ve been planning to include Steve in this fic all the time, for two reasons mainly. First, he is one of my favorite characters in the whole series and second, my personal head canon has always been that he remained on Earth after the end. So I’m more than happy to just put him in this chapter. Here’s hoping that you also like this idea.  
> Pfew… I mean to continue this story the best I can in the next weeks/months and I really hope to finish the next chapter soon.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first fic and I'm still nervous about it. I always thought there was a lack of Shoker, especially maleShep/Joker and hardly anything dealing with the events after Mass Effect 3. That's why I made up my own version of a post-ending-fic and hope dearly it'll find some people who enjoy reading it.  
> Comments and feedback are more than welcome!


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